The Be-Know-Do Framework for Leadership

We are inspired by the leadership credo of Be-Know-Do from the Armed Forces and have applied it across multiple aspects of our firm. In this article, we talk about how the framework helps us structure what we write and talk about in our blogs and videos.

You can also choose to watch this video instead.

Armed Forces from across the world have adopted this credo of Be, Know and Do when it comes to thinking about the components that go into making up leadership at various levels. 

This book from the Leader to Leader Institute, “Be-Know-Do, Leadership the Army Way” is adapted from the official army leadership manual of the United States Army, and is an example. 

“Be” as in the character the traits that go into making you a leader, “Know” as in the skills and “Do” as in the activities that leaders do. 

We at Varasi are a professional services firm, implementing Salesforce CRM solutions for our clients including businesses and non-profit organizations. We have taken this credo to heart and we have applied this as a framework for multiple operations across our firm. 

In this article, I go over how it helps us plan and put a structure around the topics that we write about and talk about in our videos and blogs. First, you see us writing about who we are, our beliefs, our philosophies, our point of view on the world of consulting and what we mean when we say our mission is helping clients build stronger customer relationships. 

Secondly, corresponding to the ‘Know’ element in the framework, you see us talking about what we know that we bring in as best practices to our projects. These are lessons that we have learned coming from years of having implemented Salesforce projects for our customers. For example, you see us talking about our approach to development as an iterative process. The Salesforce platform lends itself well to prototyping early prototyping often and involving the users in design choices that you make. 

Finally what we ‘do’ on our projects. While this is an area where we spend most of our time on our project work, when it comes to publishing our work, we focus less on the rote tasks that we might be involved in, and more on the decisions that we are helping our clients make. For example, the workshops, the methods that we might be using in order to get requirements for a CRM solution or say the criteria that guide you to making the right choice when it comes to integration approaches. 

I look forward to exploring in future articles, the other aspects of our firm where we have applied this very powerful credo.